The disclosure relates generally to Electro-hydrodynamic (EHD) devices and more particularly, to a system and method for controlling plasma induced flow in an EHD device, for example plasma actuators.
An Electro-hydrodynamic (herein also referred as “EHD”) device is used to ionize a gaseous medium to generate plasma. Typically, a charged ion (herein also referred as “a charged particle”) is separated from the plasma to transfer momentum to a neutral gaseous medium. The neutral gaseous medium is then ejected out of the EHD device. In general, the performance of the EHD devices, such as ion wind, and Dielectric Barrier Discharge (herein also referred as “DBD”) plasma actuator, is dependent on a flow velocity of the neutral gaseous medium, generated by such devices. The typical DBD plasma actuator is one-dimensional shape or has planar configuration having two large parallel plates. Such DBD plasma actuators may produce the flow velocity not exceeding 8 m/s. One reason for DBD plasma actuators not generating a velocity greater than 8 m/s is due to space charge limitation.
The space charge limitation is based on availability of the charged particles and an electric field applied for producing the charged particles. The electric field and amount of the charged ions are implicitly limited by the gaseous medium breakdown electric field value. In the conventional plasma actuators, the charged particles between one or more flat electrode may distort the applied electric field, and do not let more new charged particles to enter the plasma, thus limiting the electric current.
Thus, there is a need for an improved plasma actuator for efficiently reducing the space charge limitation.